


August 1863

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Civil War, American Civil War, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Kansas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4473146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In August of 1863, there was a raid by a pro-slavery gang lead by Quantrill. The target was Lawrence, Kansas, a beacon of abolitionist defiance. It became known as The Lawrence Massacre. </p><p>Sam left in 1861 to join the Union army. Dean was the good son, who stayed at home in Lawrence. But Dean and John cannot sit back and watch the fighting along the border. This is Bleeding Kansas, and there will be consequences, retaliation, and revenge. Lawrence burns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	August 1863

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wincestiel_Is_Key](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wincestiel_Is_Key/gifts).



The good son doesn't leave home. The good son doesn't leave his mother. The good son thinks about the family land and his family name above all else. 

And, Lord Almighty, if that didn't sum up what it meant to be a Winchester...

Sam was not the good son. He had never been the good son. But he was a good man, and he refused to believe he had done the wrong thing when he went off to join the army back in '61. But here it was, two years later, and everything he had ever loved had been destroyed, and he was forced to wonder if he hadn't been selfish in his decisions. Had he run off to enlist because it was the right thing to do, or because he just wanted to run?

The green eyes stared at the burnt ruins of the barn, and it was clear Dean was holding back his tears. "Sammy," he murmured gruffly. "Sammy, that you?"

"Yes, sir," he said without meaning to. Dean had sounded so like their father in that moment...He swallowed and stepped closer. "Yes, I'm here."

"A little late, ain't you?"

Sam's breath stumbled in his throat. "Dean, I'm so sorry."

A bitter laugh came from the man, who still did not turn to face him. "You're sorry," he muttered back. "Yeah. Me too. If you're here to see Dad, he ain't home right now. I wish I could just say Dad was on a hunting trip, and that's why he hasn't been home in a few days."

"I wish so too."

"Do you?" At last, Dean turned, and the anger on his face was muted by the wealth of pain and shame. When Sam sucked his breath in through his teeth, Dean laughed again. "Pretty, ain't it? I think it gives me a distinctive look."

"Lord, Dean!" His brother's throat and as much of his chest as Sam could see was malformed in such a horrible way that Sam felt immediately sick. He had seen horrors on the battlefield that could never be described, but this was his brother, and that soared above the callouses he had built up against the visions of broken men. 

"Ain't no Lord in Lawrence. Look around you." Dean gestured to the still-smoking buildings in the distance. "Maybe He rode off to join the Yanks."

Sam's jaw clenched tight. "Dean, I did what I had to do, what you should have done too, and Dad!"

"You run off to play Sunday soldier all the live long, and we got to keep the land worked! And then your regiment comes parading into town like big damn heroes, like the rest of us gotta be grateful for your kind protection, and the papers start boasting about Lawrence is just itching for a fight, and come and get us, you grey backs! Then you march out and two days on, the fight comes to us, but ya'll are gone! You got any idea how many Quantrill's boys killed? I knew every one of those men! And Dad! And our mother refused to leave the house while Dad was dying in it, so I had to go in after her, and we can see how that ended! And doctor says she just gave up, died of a broken heart a day later. I'm thinking the smoke might've had something to do with it too. But I ain't smart like you, so I wouldn't know."

Tears were rushing down Sam's cheeks now. It was something he would never let anyone but his brother see. "We didn't know!" he hissed out. 

Dean snorted bitterly. He picked a blackened piece of wood out of the wreckage at random, and tossed it a few feet away. "Revenge, they said." This time, his voice was softer, and there was less venom in it. He stared out over the field. "For the raids."

When Sam realized that guilt was part of what his brother was expressing, he let his mouth fall open. "Dean!" It was a whisper. "Lord 'Mighty, Dean! You and Dad..."

The lips above the scarred throat were trembling. "Dad was part of them. I helped some."

"Dad was a Jayhawker? Redlegging on the border? But why?"

Dean's eyes flashed in fury now. "Why? Did you just say why? Same damn reason you mustered up yourself! Because them slaving grey backs were pushing into Kansas! Except me and Dad, and our boys, we didn't run off to Lord-knows-where to fight. We fought for our own damn land! We're Lawrence, Sammy! Outpost for abolition in a territory supposed to be free. They pushed us, we pushed back!"

Sam stared at him. "That's what this was about, Dean! Quantrill's boys making an example of Lawrence because of Jayhawker raids in Missouri along the border! Using Lawrence to show the South what happens to towns that harbor abolition sympathies and give haven to Jayhawkers! How could you and Dad be a part of raids that could bring something like this down on our home?"

The tears burst from Dean in wrecked sobs. "And how could you leave us to fight alone?" he screamed hoarsely. 

As angry as he was, Sam's love for his brother and his own grief won out. He reached and wrapped Dean into his arms, holding him tighter when the older man tried to flinch away, until at last, he collapsed into sobs in Sam's embrace. 

"It was so horrible, Sammy," he choked. "You don't know. You don't even know. Only reason I'm alive is that I had so much blood on me they thought I was dead. Mine. Dad's. Benny's. Garth's. Every guy around me, dead, all their blood all over me. The round just grazed me enough that I went down, passed out cold when I hit the stone with my head. I woke up to the whole place on fire."

Sam lowered his brother to rest on a pile of blackened wood that Dean had stacked before he had arrived. But he did not let go. 

"Took four hours to kill over a hundred of us."

"A hundred fifty, we think," Sam confirmed quietly. "They're calling it the Lawrence Massacre on our side. I hate to think what they're calling it in Missouri."

"They razed the town, and I woke up to the smoke. Every building, every damn one. And my first thought-because I figured Mama was with the other women-my first thought was of Baby."

Sam winced. He had not heard Dean call their mother Mama for many long years. 

"I got to the stable in time to let her out. She ran. Came back needing water this morning, but the old girl made it."

He sighed. "She's a tough mare," he whispered. 

"Yeah," Dean wept as he leaned into his brother's chest. "She's all that's left, Sammy. Mama wasn't with the other women. She went back to the house for Dad." He pulled himself from Sam's grip to look at him. "Remember all the fights they had? Throwing conniptions over the littlest things? And in the end, she wouldn't leave him. I tried, Sammy. When I realized...when Joanna Beth told me she was in there with Dad, I tried. Please believe me I tried."

"I know you did. I know. Old Fred Jones said they had to pull your stubborn ass out of the fire, that you shoved Ma out, and then trapped yourself."

"And it didn't matter," he croaked. "She was already near to gone. Dad was gone. All our old friends. Sammy, they're all gone. We never meant for this to happen, Sammy. Dad and me...we only ever went on raids against raiders. Sometimes the boys talked about doing like Ewing did, punishing folks that harbor the slavers that raid Kansas. But we couldn't do that. We were only trying to fight for what's ours, and now...and now we got nothing. A hundred fifty unarmed men and boys, Sammy."

"I'm so sorry I wasn't here, Dean."

He lifted his gaze to lock with Sam's. He grabbed his brother's arm. "Don't listen to what I said angry, Sammy. I'm damn grateful you weren't here. I got you. I got my Baby. We can start again. If I'd lost you...Sammy, I just don't think I could live through that. I know I wouldn't want to."

Sam took a breath and nodded. "I've been given my papers to muster down. All the Lawrence boys got the choice. I'm going to come home, see if we can rebuild some of what we had. I ain't leaving you again, Dean."

Relief and gratitude shone in the haunted green eyes. "I love you, little brother."

"I love you. We'll be a family again, Dean. I promise. Go get Baby. We got work to do."

**Author's Note:**

> Even though this is a fairly short fic, I did quite a bit of research for it. Hope you enjoyed!!


End file.
